Edit: I'll just shut up. There's no reason to continue to argue about evolution.
Saename
JoinedPosts by Saename
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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Saename
cofty - We know from brain scans and from individuals who have suffered injury exactly what parts of the brain are involved in these functions.
It's also worth mentioning that we already have scanned the brains of psychopaths using MRI. These scans show exactly what brain abnormalities psychopaths have. It was found that psychopaths had significantly reduced grey matter volumes in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles compared to healthy individuals.
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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Saename
John_Mann - If evolution is the cause of our consciousness why it would create something totally unreal like the idea of God? The idea of God is the most pursued idea in human history as we still are talking about it now. Evolution "hates" waste, so why bring such enormous waste of energy in an unreal idea?
Your argument is flawed. You're saying that god must be real because evolution created our consciousness, which in turn created the idea of god. But because there is no reason for evolution to create something unreal, god must be real.
Firstly, the concept of god is not the product of evolution. Evolution "created" brains. Then humans created the concept of god, using their brains, in order to explain why and how they exist. It wasn't the evolution; it was us.
Secondly, evolution does not have intelligence. It can't create anything per se. Evolution is the process by which living organisms adapt to new environmental factors. Hence, the whole question "Why would evolution create something totally unreal like the idea of God?" is completely nonsensical. (Which is why evolution is also not responsible for what we do with our brains—see point #1 again.)
Thirdly, have you not heard of vestigial organs? Humans, and other species, have organs that we don't use. That don't do anything.
Fourthly, humans believe unreal things all the time—things other than god. One of the most important examples one can give is Scientology (since I don't think you're a Scientologist.)
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Brother Hitting on Df'd Brothers Wife at KH
by poopie ininteresting story i have a friend who is df but his wife still faithfully goes to meetings.
there's a single brother in the cong that is always flirting with his wife.
well at a recent meeting my df friend decided to show up to check this brother out.
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Saename
Vidiot - These days, The TATT tends to filter us decent guys out.
BLASPHEMY! It's TTATT, not TATT. The Truth about the Truth. The prophets of ex-JWism shall rebuke you.
By the way, this guy was just outright disrespectful. You don't go after someone's wife (or husband) unless they're separated. And you don't treat disfellowshipped people as if they were dead and their marriage invalid.
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The Results Are In: On average, for the past 90 years, 1/3 of the world has been banned
by ILoveTTATT2 inso using some amazing features of excel and the starting data here, i managed to get the average, the maximum, and the minimum percentage of the inhabited landmass of the earth where jehovah's witnesses have been either active (reported) or "not banned".the average is 66.10%!!
that means that for 90 years, ever since there is data, 1/3 of the world's area has not been preached in or been fully able to preach in!the minimum occurred in 1943, when only 26.77% of the world's inhabited area made a full yearly report and/or wasn't banned.the maximum occurred in 1991 because the yearbook said that the ussr was included.
the maximum was 82.47%.
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Saename
82.47%? That's amazing.
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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Saename
John_Mann - Cofty
Why humans evolved to perceive evil at all?
We are the only specie to perceive evil, justice, mortality, etc.
BTW no other species have consciousness at all..
Nope. We are not the only species to perceive evil, justice, and morality. Other species certainly do have codes of conduct as well. Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce is a good book to read on the topic. Marc Bekoff is a Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist and a philosopher.
The book is only 200 pages long, but it contains a lot of information; for instance, it cites experiments done by other scientists, so you can look those up as well.
When it comes to consciousness, it still remains one of the great mysteries of science. We don't know what it is and what causes it, but in the Middle Ages, we also didn't know that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. Sooner or later, we will find out. The unknown is not a reason to believe in a divine entity.
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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Saename
Xanthippe - Confucius and others introduced the Golden Rule (treat others as you would be treated) at around the same time.
Actually, the Golden Rule goes waaaaay back—even before Confucius.
The Eloquent Peasant from Ancient Egypt is the first story to ever record this rule. The story dates back to ca. 19th century BCE (Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.) That's around 14 centuries before Confucius. You can find this story here. The rule appears on page 174: "This is the precept: Do to the doer to make him do."
There's also a papyrus from the Late Period of Egypt, which contains a similar rule: "That which you hate to be done to you, do not do it to another." The papyrus is damaged, so we don't have all of the text, but there's enough to see the rule itself. You can find the translation on page 95 of this document.
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210
Morality Without Deity
by cofty inone of the most persistent arguments for belief in god centres on the necessity of an ultimate law-giver and epitome of goodness.. a softer version is seen in the genuine concern that a loss of faith will result in a corresponding loss of a moral compass - a more strident argument links the existence of good and evil with proof of the reality of god.
it is often asserted that without god, moral decisions degenerate to nothing more than personal preferences and the victory of "might is right".. i want to succinctly lay out my response as an atheist, and show that a supreme being is not required for objective morality.. it is helpful to distinguish between absolute morality, objective morality and subjective morality.
christian apologists frequently conflate the first two, and secular debaters often fail to point out the difference.. theists who disagree on everything else, are unanimous that god is perfectly good.
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Saename
When I was watching Sam Harris's debate with William Craig, there was one major problem I had with Craig's claim. If we can have objective morality only because of God, why is it that every single religion and every single denomination within disagree with each other on what God's morality is?
And another point that I have raised on other websites is the same you mention. These religious people who are so eager to claim that God is the epitome of morality often don't even notice that they are justifying their own moral positions by citing verses from their holy books post hoc. Their morality is therefore based on what the society deems appropriate.
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Sam Harris & Jordan Peterson
by azor inlistening to 2 of my current favorite thinkers debate/discussion.
i've been looking forward to this since i found out about it a month ago.
hope some of you get a chance to listen.
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Saename
bohm - So you are claiming that mis-gendering is now a hate crime in canada?
If I understand the law correctly, it's not that it is, but that it could be.
C-16 Bill replaced Subparagraph 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code with the following:
(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor, [emphasis added]
(The bill added the words "gender identity or expression.") This means, in my view, that if an offence is motivated by hatred based on gender identity or expression, then it is a hate crime. The problem with this law is that it doesn't specify anything. So is mis-gendering a hate crime? It could be.
Edit: But please do correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know much about the law. I can hardly even say that I know anything.
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Being a Rude Jerk, It's Awesome!
by Simon inmaybe it's a british thing, but we tend to be polite.
too polite.. even if someone is inconsiderate, we apologize as though we did something wrong.. prime offenders?
people in supermarkets, specifically costco.. they have nice wide isles and yet somehow, for some reason, some idiot will find a way to put their trolley sideways and keep a hand on it while reaching for something, thus blocking the entire isle.. or another favorite ... you're going through the entrance and someone just stops, maybe to answer their phone.. how about you wait in a queue at a checkout for ages and when it's their turn, then they start looking for their purse.. how many times have you thought "idiot" or muttered under your breath?.
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Saename
Until Simon came around and ruined our reputation by telling a guy to move aside his shopping cart.
Bad Simon. We are so sorry. This is not us. We Canadians are always nice. Simon is the black sheep.
We are so so sorry for his extremism.
